Yealands Estate PGR 2013 Marlborough

The full name of this brand new wine is Yealands Estate, Awatere Valley Single Vineyard PGR 2013 Marlborough. Quite a mouthful and one that makes me laugh as I have visited Yealands Estate in the southern part of the Marlborough region and it is an absolutely vast contiguous stretch of vines so presumably almost everything it grows could be called 'Single Vineyard'. It is very keen on its carbon-neutral credentials and winemaking is overseen by the talented Tamra Kelly-Washington. Awatere is the coolest, least fertile stretch of Marlborough. I have to say that I was not knocked out by early releases from this vast estate but it may have been because the vines were so extremely young.

I think many wine lovers will warm to this particular wine however. It's a blend of three of the 'aromatics' of which New Zealand wine producers and wine drinkers have become so fond: Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer and Riesling. I'm told the blend is actually 50% Pinot Gris, 35% Riesling, 15% Gewurztraminer so am not quite sure why it is not called PRG. Certainly the Riesling component is very obvious, particularly on the nose, the Gewurz much less so (I was surprised to see how many delicious Gewurztraminers seem to have come my way lately, as evinced by this recent list of favourites) while the popular Pinot Gris seems to provide the ballast.

This 13 per center is very pale - almost water white - and has some real delicacy. In fact the filigree texture is one of its great assets, along with excellent balance of fresh, racy acidity and fresh fruit that is just off dry. There is none of the heavy oiliness nor excess phenolics that beset some New Zealand wines from these varieties. I'd probably choose to drink this without food but it certainly isn't too sweet to be drunk with fish, cheese or even chicken.

The mystery is that it seems to be available only in the UK. There is no mention of it - yet - on Yealands' website.

I also tried their Grüner Veltliner 2013, the vintage I think, which was fine and their third vintage. I think subsequent vintages may be quite exciting as the vines age, but for the moment it tastes a little pale alongside Austrians at the same price.

The link below takes you to all Yealands' 2013s as different retailers have different ways of writing 'PGR'.